


There is No Submission Base Where Error is Repented

by Oaktown75



Series: Sunk Costs [1]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-04
Updated: 2011-12-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oaktown75/pseuds/Oaktown75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zito re-lives his own misguided romantic accounts, and thinks they may not hold their value.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There is No Submission Base Where Error is Repented

**Author's Note:**

> Posted in honor of Barry Zito's wedding weekend. The title comes from Thomas Campion's Two Bookes of Ayres.

SPRING 2005

Barry Zito had stumbled as he came through the clubhouse - the down the tunnel from the dugout had been a horror. He hadn't been booed, he'd been met with dead silence. He'd given up eight runs in three and a third against the Rays. The Rays! His curve wasn't dropping - just sitting ripe for picking, and his two seamer couldn't fool anyone. The home crowd, becoming used to his up-and-down performances, was indifferent as he handed the ball to Macha and left the field. It was a living nightmare. Usually able to shake it off, today his head felt like it was going to blow up. The call from St. Louis last night, Mulder telling him to 'Just get over it, dude, it's done,' had shaken him so thoroughly and brought him so far down that he felt like he was looking up the ladder just to reach despair. He recalled Opening Day 2003, when what Mulder had told him was, 'They can love ya, or they can hate you, but when you become invisible to them, you're done.' He'd was only a few months past winning the Cy Young, and Mulder was already trying to bring him down. Still, he thought, they were some of the most profound words he'd ever heard out of the big lefty's mouth. Well, that and 'Goddamn Zito, you are the best fuck in this entire building, maybe in this entire city.' Not exactly a heartwarming sentiment, but and maybe not actually profound, but they were important because those words opened his eyes to the realization that he really meant nothing more than that to Mulder. For Barry Zito, though, journey from 'important' to 'realization' had taken a while to sink in. Still, the words were profound enough to realize that when Mulder got on that plane out of here a few months ago, he wasn't looking back. That took a while to take hold, too. St. Louis was more home to him than Oakland would ever be, only a four hour drive to his family outside of Chicago, and closer to Atlanta, where Huddy was also more home to him than Zito would ever be.

Mulder loved to fuck him, but that was where he drew the line. Everything that counted went to Huddy, who was so straight that he actually thanked Zito for saving him from anything awkward with Mulder. But when the game was over, when the clubhouse cleared out and the starters finished their meeting, when it was just Zito and Mulder, that's when everything left went to Zito. Mulder would back him up against the shower wall, sliding his tongue into Zito's waiting mouth. Those big hands would hold him in place as his cock pressed against Zito's stomach, and he'd reach around to spread Zito's ass, sliding in first one finger, and then two. Zito would shiver and keen and beg until Mulder would turn him around and bend him over. Forearms reaching for the wall to hold himself up, Zito took all Mulder had to give him as Mulder stroked and pulled his cock. Mulder would always make sure Zito came first, he loved the feeling of Zito's ass squeezing the come out of him.

And then what had come was the call. Mulder hadn't even waited to actually talk to him, Zito learned about the trade from the message on his answering machine when he got home from visiting his sister in LA. "I'm outta here, Dude. On my way to the Cards. Have a good season, huh? So, like, gimme a call me sometime. Uh, Merry Christmas. Yeah, bye."

Merry Christmas. It had been an awful Christmas, and the New Year didn't look any better until he'd gotten a call from Byrnes and Kielty that his presence was required at the Melheuse residence for a big fuckin five day New Years blow out. The minute he walked through the door he had been grabbed by Richie and sequestered in his room at the back of the house. "Listen up Zeets, we're gonna talk this out until you don't remember anything but me, with you, in this room. We're gonna start with your first memory of him, and go through every one of them until they don't mean anything. None of em. And then, then, we'll see where your new year goes."

"Richie?"

"Yeah?"

"Dude, can we start with a case of beer first? It'll be a lot easier to remember that shit with a case of beer." Richie had laughed out loud; and Zito had thought that for someone who always seems to be smiling, this might be the first time he'd ever actually heard Richie laugh.

"Sure Barry, you, me and a case of Dogfish. Then, every memory."

He'd never heard Richie so free with his laughter as he had been that night, but before sunrise, Zito knew that he'd hear it again and again for some time to come. Sitting on the floor, back to the dresser, Richie listened to every word and never stopped him. As Zito wound down, his eyes flicked to Richie's, and that was exactly the moment Barry Zito knew, with absolute certainty that what he and Richie would have would make memories of Mulder pale in comparison. It was just that it hadn't happened yet. The three inches Zito had on Richie were the same number of inches Mulder had on him. But these three inches weren't in Zito'd swollen head, and he couldn't for the life of him really figure out for certain where, exactly, they were.

 

DECEMBER 2010

Zito looks at the bathroom door where he knows Timmy is standing in the shower trying to figure out what the hell has just happened. Zito understands trying to figure out what the hell has just happened, because as much as he thought Mulder was the real thing, he'd discovered that Richie actually was the real thing. Not that he'd ever told him so when it counted, just that he'd come to know it with the kind of certainty one can't really bury. When he finally told Richie, during those weeks when they were both in town at the same time, Richie had looked into him with those impossibly blue eyes and said, "Well yeah, of course. How could it every get any more real than this, Barry? We rescued each other and recovered together. Name one thing that could be more real than that." Zito couldn't.

After knocking on the bathroom door repeatedly without a response, he opens it slightly. A wall of steam hits him and engulfs him, pouring out into the bedroom.

"Jesus, Timmy, how hot do you have that thing up?" Walking in, he looks through the glass to see Tim sitting on the tiled bench, knees pulled up to his chest, arms around them, head bent, barely visible through the thick cloud. "Timmy? Are you okay?" Lincecum looks up at him, shakes his head, then drops his face back into his hands.

Zito opens the door and steps inside only to feel his toes burned by the hot water. "Jesus fucking Christ, Tim, what are you doing?" Jumping back, his arm dodges the spray as he reaches in and turns down the heat.

When the water cools enough that Zito can stand in the shower and the steam dissipates enough to see, Zito crouches in front of Tim, pulling his hands from his face. "Timmy?" he whispers as he strokes the hair back from Tim's face and tucks it behind his ears.

"I could ask you the same thing. You're gonna leave me Bar, and I don't know what I'm gonna do. You're gonna go back to him, he was the love of your life and the whole league knows it. You know it, I know it, and he knows it. I'm just not sure what I'm gonna do when you walk. I'm not sure I shouldn't just let this go right now, here today, so that I don't have to go through this. I can't stand it fucking up my season. I'm no beacon of brilliance, dude, but I know this is gonna be trouble. And honest, Barry, I'm just not sure if it's worse for me to go or to stay, so I guess I just, I just, um, I just need some time."

 

SPRING 2004

Richie hadn't just walked into the clubhouse, he sauntered in like he already owned the place. All eyes were on him, his smirk firmly fixed, his audacious blue eyes staring, and he'd simply said "Hey."

"Hey kid," Huddy had responded. "Welcome back, Kid," Chavy said, followed by "Kid," "Kid," "Kid," and then Crosby. "Richie," he said. "Took you long enough." "Two weeks longer, two times better," he said, and Zito had surprised him with a laugh. Mulder turned to Zito, staring at him.

"S'up Johnny Baseball, you got a problem?' Zito said back to his glare." Afraid Kid's gonna take your job?"

"Only on Planet Zito is that gonna happen," Mulder threw back at him.

"Still best of friends, I see," Richie laughed. "Jesus, some things never change."

"Not with these two," Huddy had laughed. "You'd think they were twins the way they constantly fight for position, for airspace, for everything! " The guys suppressed an out and out laugh, but tittering was definitely audible. "Can't fucking stand him," Mulder said. "Back at ya Johnny B," Zito retorted, and then turned to Richie. "Back to do what you started last year?"

"That's the plan."

"As long as it's not my job," Zito laughed, nodding at Mulder.

"Fifth starter, Man. Righty," Harden said out of the side of his mouth, smirk firmly planted.

"So you after MY job, Kid?" Huddy teased.

"No sir, Mr. Hudson, sir," Richie said with his smirk. "I'm just here to clean up after you." The laughter was contagious, and before long, the whole place was back to being the asylum they all loved. Paper plates were flying, arcade games were ringing, and Zito and Mulder were locked in some kind of ancient Greek staring contest. Richie went to lean against his locker next to Huddy, while the standoff continued. Finally Zito leaned in and whispered, "Twins joined at the hip," and Mulder stood and turned away from him. His smile was visible only to Huddy and Richie. "Get him?" Huddy asked. "I always get him," Mulder responded, walking over to grab a soda.

Richie looked to Zito, who had his own victorious smile spreading generously across his face. "Get him?" Richie asked him, and Huddy elbowed him as he pulled himself off his locker and headed after Mulder. "I always get him." Richie smirked at him. "I'll bet you do," he said, and pulled himself off his locker.

"C'mon," Richie said, "No sign of Redmond, so let's play 'Starting Four'."

"Dunno, kid, we're pretty happy with the Big Three."

"Mr. Hudson, I've been sent here to help you. Your life is going to be a whole lot easier when there are two adults in the house to send those two boys to their rooms." Hudson laughs out loud. "So trust me," Richie said, "you'll be happier with number four." Tim looked at Richie, saw his blue eyes shining and his mouth curved into a smirk.

"You can call me Huddy, Kid."


End file.
